Happy Birthday Aniki!
by Kakyoku no Kaze
Summary: Set back when Itachi was 9 and Sasuke was 4. Sasuke wants to do something special for Itachi's birthday! But does it come out as he planned?


Disclaimer- I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this story, waaah!

A/N- Warning, what is about to occur in this fanfiction should not be attempted at home!

Happy Birthday, Aniki!

* * *

* * *

"Sasuke-chan! Sasuke-chan?" A kind melodious voice called out. It belonged to none other than Uchiha Mikoto, the sweet mother of Itachi and Sasuke who gained no attention whatsoever, and who was standing in her usual post in the kitchen with a ladle in hand. It was early morning; although it was evident the woman had been up much earlier.

"Is he still sleeping? Itachi too?" The woman wondered aloud to herself as she slowly stirred the boiling pot of miso soup that had threatened to bubble over. "Sasuke-chan! Itachi-chan!" She called out again, louder this time, "It's time to get up and have some breakfast!"

A slow, light thumping of the wooden staircase answered her call. Judging by the pace and weight pressed onto the wood by the steps it was Itachi who was descending to the kitchen.

"Ohiyo Itachi-chan." Mikoto smiled as she poured the soup into a small bowl and set it down on the table next to a similar sized bowl of white rice and a rectangular porcelain plate that held a single fried fish on its surface.

"Ohiyo Okaa-san." Itachi answered back quietly, sleep still evidently clouding his actions as he slowly seated himself and began eating his meal, all the while with his eyes closed.

Mikoto frowned. She did not enjoy seeing her baby like this, but with the upcoming Chuunin exams Itachi seemed to have worn himself out even more each and everyday with rigorous training. He should at least allow himself a day or two to relax lest his body protested from fatigue and refused to move one way or another.

'_And today's his birthday too…'_ Mikoto sighed, but quickly masked her sadness when the pitter-patter of tiny feet running quickly into the kitchen signaled the arrival of her other son. "Ohiyo Sasuke-chan." She greeted with a smile.

"Ohiyo, kaa-san!" Sasuke returned cheerfully, his face breaking out into a grin. Just how could one little boy be so cute! "Ohiyo aniki!" Sasuke cried out as he plopped down next to the older brother he admired and adored so very much.

"Ah. Ohiyo Sasuke…" Itachi mumbled, with his eyes still closed. Sasuke stared in awe at how Itachi could eat like that. It must be something one could accomplish with a lot of training!

"Ne ne aniki! Could you take me to training with you today?" Sasuke asked, looking up at his brother's face expectantly.

"No." Itachi muttered without so much as a second to ponder. He sipped the remainder of his soup and placed his bowl and chopsticks down.

"Demo demo….doushite?" Sasuke pouted, frantically grabbing at Itachi's arm as the elder of the two tried to stand up to leave.

Itachi sighed tiredly, shaking his arm in a futile attempt, "Because I don't want you to get hurt, now let me go Sasuke."

"I won't get hurt! I learned a new technique from otou-san just last week!" Sasuke whined, clinging tighter to his brother's arm. It was true though! Ever since his father had tried to teach him the clan's legendary fire technique Sasuke had practiced hard every day until he could master it. Now he could successfully blow a gigantic fireball with an impressive diameter.

"Itachi-chan why don't you take a day off from training today?" Mikoto suggested as she took his dishes and began washing them in the sink. Sasuke just might be the perfect excuse he needed to rest his body. She didn't feel horrible, because she wasn't using her younger son technically. This would be beneficial to the brothers' relationship as well!

Itachi sighed. There wasn't anyway he could escape from this. Not when both his brother and mother were bothering him about his training. Plus, Sasuke had started sobbing with those big, pitiful eyes and Itachi had no intention of making his brother cry. "How about this… I'll train only until noon and then I'll do whatever you want us to do together afterwards. Does that sound good, Sasuke?" He asked, patting his brother on the head. He knew this situation couldn't be solved with a simple poke to his brother's forehead and an 'I'm sorry Sasuke, maybe next time'.

Sasuke still pouted, but he had let go of his brother's arm then. "Alright… but…. Don't think I don't know how to tell time!" He called out to his brother's retreating back. When he heard the front sliding door open and close he rushed up to his mother and pointed at the grandfather clock which rested in the hallway. "Noon is when the long hand and the little hand point straight up, right kaa-san?"

Mikoto couldn't resist a chuckle at her son's skeptical expression. She bent her knees to kiss his forehead, "Hai, Sasuke-chan, that's right. Noon is when both hands point at the twelve."

Sasuke smiled widely then hopped back to his breakfast satisfied. "Ne Sasuke-chan? Did you know today aniki turns ten?" His mother asked as he began gnawing on a small fried fish.

"Huh? Today's aniki's birthday?" Sasuke asked, muffled.

Mikoto nodded, "Hai. Do you think he'd like a strawberry cake? Or maybe chocolate?" She asked, looking out the window to the bright sunny sky thoughtfully.

"Make a tomato cake!" Sasuke cried out happily. Tomatoes had to be one of Sasuke's most favorite foods in the whole world! He loved eating them so much he couldn't stop once he started. Also from his logical viewpoint, if tomatoes tasted great alone, in sauce over noodles, or as a thicker sauce with fries, why not in cake?

Mikoto laughed. "Saaa na, I'll have to buy a few things at the market place then if we're going to make aniki a really tasty cake for his birthday!" she said as she turned off the water and wiped her hands on her apron.

"I'll be home alone?" Sasuke asked, scooping rice into his mouth with his tiny chopsticks. His eyes widened and he had forgotten how to chew momentarily as his mother nodded. She never allowed him to stay home alone before!

"Sasuke-chan is a big boy now. One who's very smart and can tell time!" Mikoto answered cheerfully to her son's shocked expression. She felt she could trust Sasuke to stay at home without her supervision for a few hours. Besides, Itachi would return home in four hours anyway and he would keep Sasuke company when the time came.

"I won't disappoint you!" Sasuke cried out, a determined smile on his face. Mikoto chuckled and pet his hair gently.

"I know you won't, Sasuke-chan. You're my son after all." She smiled, "Are you finished?"

In a blur Sasuke was scooping the remainder of the rice in his mouth and slurping the soup, all done in record time. "Hai!" He answered a literal two seconds later, holding the dishes out to his mother.

"Don't choke now!" Mikoto warned him worriedly, rubbing his back in case he did.

"But I'm a big boy now! I can handle it!" He grinned overconfidently as he stood up. "I'm going to train outside myself ok? Bye kaa-san!" He called out, his feet pitter-pattering rapidly away.

Mikoto sighed, but smiled. "I can trust him to not do anything dangerous." She assured herself as she faintly heard him throwing shuriken against a wooden pillar.

* * *

Sasuke quickly rushed inside an hour later after a brilliant idea had struck him. His mother did say he was smart and she had trusted him with the house, so why didn't he try helping her out to show how good he was by making his aniki's birthday cake himself?

"It's a perfect idea!" He assured himself, rushing into the kitchen. "Now let's see, how do you make a cake…" He glanced around until he spotted the drawer where his mother kept her recipes. "Nnnnn!" He clenched his teeth as he dragged a chair from another room until it was next to the cabinet.

His eyes widened with awe as he pulled open the drawer. It was overflowing with recipes! Deciding that it'd be too hard to stand there all day and search for it Sasuke pulled out the entire drawer and dropped it on the floor with a bang, scattering a few note cards in random locations.

"Let's see, how to make Dango, how to make cookies, mmm I like cookies, wait no, focus here Sasuke!" He scolded himself. He had plopped down on the floor in front of the fallen drawer to look through and throw any recipes on the note cards that did not suit his plan behind his back.

After a few more minutes of searching he finally found a recipe that said cake on it. "Yay! Gotcha!" He smiled, holding it up. He hopped up to grab the nice silver things his mother used whenever she baked, with some help from his chair, ignoring the sea of white note cards covering the floor.

"Ok! Uhhhm… firstly the most important ingredient!" He called out dramatically to no one in particular. "Tomatoes!" he screamed, plopping the large juicy red produce into the giant mixing bowl. He seemed unsatisfied with only five tomatoes so he ran to the refrigerator to grab the whole bag. "This is the tastiest part, so if I add plenty then no one will be able to stop eating it! And aniki will praise me and maybe want to spend more time with me!" He grinned as the tomatoes rained from the bag and filled up the bowl until it overflowed, causing one to tumble to the floor.

"Mmm... that's enough I suppose…" Sasuke shrugged like he was still slightly displeased. Reaching down to grab the fallen tomato and taking a bite of it he continued reading over the recipe, taking no notice of the tomato juice dribbling down his chin and soaking into his wide-collared shirt.

He blinked when his eyes scanned over foreign looking words. What exactly did tbsp or tsp mean? He searched in his mind for meanings until he smiled with realization. Of course! How could he be so stupid? The t stood for table and the sp stood for spoon, so that meant he needed a whole tabletop's worth of ingredients and a spoon to mix them with! Perfectly logical! He felt very clever as he began his work.

* * *

Somewhere in a clearing surrounded by tall sturdy trees Itachi felt a familiar shiver of dread snake down his spine. He crouched on a tree branch and looked up at the sky, his lips turned down in a frown. The only time he ever felt like this was when Sasuke was about to do something that'd only end in disaster.

He slowly shook his head, reassuring himself. After all, Mikoto was still at home watching over Sasuke, right? The woman was not foolish enough to allow the young boy to do as he pleased without supervision was she? Of course not, she was their mother after all.

Itachi paused at that. That was exactly the reason why he could feel that shivery feeling. The woman was far too trusting! He groaned as he hopped down from the tree and made his way home. "Why was I cursed with such a mother as her…" He grumbled, dashing past branches that had the fetish to constantly slap him in sometimes inappropriate places.

* * *

"Achoo!"

"Catching a cold, Mikoto?" A woman with fading pink hair inquired, shifting her weight a bit to carry her sleeping daughter in a more comfortable position. She was not alone however as a group of women were accompanying them in the marketplace where they just 'happened' to meet up.

"Iie, at least I don't think so…" Mikoto smiled.

"Maybe somebody's talking about you!" Another woman grinned, her wolf companion barking in agreement.

"Oh do you really think so?" Mikoto laughed and blushed, thinking she was being complimented behind her back.

Delusional thinking was a nice thing sometimes.

* * *

"Uhm…. I think I'll need an even bigger bowl…." Sasuke muttered to himself as he surveyed the five overflowing bowls of powders. Back at the Uchiha household Sasuke had finished his task of dumping the ingredients into mixing bowls with his arm after he measured them one by one by spreading them on the table individually. It was safe to say that he was as much covered with the powders as there were sitting in the bowls.

Who knew his mother had so little of the ingredients though? There was only one bag of flour and two bags of salt! Hardly enough to fill the entire tabletop! Guess aniki would have to make due with a smaller cake than he had wanted.

Sasuke wondered for a second why there was so little sugar added when he had to use a whole table top and a half of salt. "Cake is supposed to be more sweet than salty so…." He shrugged as he grabbed every bag of sugar his mother had in the house and dumped them all into the bowls- two bags of brown sugar, five bags of white sugar, and three bags of powdered sugar.

He also wondered what in the world baking soda was.

'_If you don't know the meaning of a word or phrase then take it apart and join the combined meanings together_.' Sasuke heard Itachi say to him in his memory. He smiled and knocked a fist lightly against his head, "Of course! Baking soda is soda, but it's used for baking so it's special then!" He happily rushed to the refrigerator and pulled out as many cans of soda as he could carry with his little arms.

He noted on the card that it said to not mix the wet ingredients with the dry ones until the dry ones were thoroughly mixed. That again brought up the problem of finding something large enough for him to mix them in. As he glanced about thinking, something sitting outside caught his eye. The small garden pond! And there was already some water in there! The recipe called for water! Perfect!

After padding to and fro between the kitchen and the pond seven times Sasuke had successfully dumped everything into the small pond which now burbled into a strange sticky goo.

"Now we mix 'em up mix 'em up!" He sang as he opened a total of twenty cans of soda and dumped the sugary drinks in (he had gone back to grab more during his return trips). "Now to mix it all nice and good!" He looked at the long wooden spoon in his hand then back at the pond. The spoon looked rather flimsy at the moment. Too flimsy to even work in Sasuke's opinion and he tossed the useless device over his shoulder.

"What can I use to mix this up then?" Sasuke pouted then screamed when his foot sunk into the gooey mixture. "Lemme go lemme go!" He shrieked, trying to tug his foot away. His foot slid out easily of course, but that action had given Sasuke his solution.

With a delighted cry he jumped into the mixture, laughing at how weird and squishy it felt. After a few minutes of jumping around he stopped, reminding himself he had a job to do (and he was getting tired of the game).

"Well…mommy uses the oven to bake, but I'm not allowed to touch the oven yet!" He said aloud to himself. "What else can I use to heat this up?" He glanced all around and stopped when he saw a random exploding note blow up against a rock causing a flaming pebble to whack into a cat, scorching it.

"That's it!" He clapped a fist into his open palm with realization. He climbed up from the 'cake mix', walked until he was a good distance from the pond, and when he was satisfied he inhaled deeply and rapidly performed the required hand signs, "KATON! GOKAKYOU NO JUTSU!"

A gigantic fireball emitted from his mouth and crackled merrily. Sasuke hoped at least some of it was getting to the mix.

* * *

Itachi stopped when he heard a high pitched cry which sounded suspiciously like a jutsu name. He paled visibly when he saw the top of a huge swirling mass of red, golden, and orange heat suddenly appear right in his backyard. Just what in the world was Sasuke doing practicing that technique where the risk of burning down their house was so high!

"Sasuke!" Itachi cried out, now dashing towards his house. He hoped his foolish brother was not hurt in any way, or in the worst case scenario-….

He shook his head rapidly side-to-side. He had no time to think like that right now, he needed to concentrate more on avoiding the many obstacles that still took a strange liking to hitting him in inappropriate places as he ran.

* * *

Sasuke smiled proudly to himself when the fire fizzled into smoke and he could finally view his work. Sure, the walls were just _slightly_ torched, but black looked much better than marble white any day.

"SASUKE!"

The small boy's ears perked at the sound of a familiar voice. "Aniki?" He asked, turning around and smiled as he ran up to greet Itachi who looked quite out of breath.

"Oh for the love of Kami-san, what were you doing! Are you hurt!" Itachi demanded, hugging his brother tightly against his chest, relieved that Sasuke was still alive and moving.

"Mmmph, no no I'm fine aniki!" Sasuke struggled so he could at least breathe. Why did his brother feel like hugging him so much all of a sudden? He gasped, it must've been because Itachi saw the cake and was so happy and proud of Sasuke! He did good work indeed!

Then Sasuke's smile turned into a small frown. "Aniki you weren't supposed to see this until I was done with the icing…" The four-year-old pouted.

"See…what? Until you were done with….what?" Itachi blinked, releasing his hold slightly to look at the boy in arm's length.

"The cake, aniki! See?" Sasuke pointed to the pond that now had a solid and strangely fluffy mound expanded over its rocky edges.

Itachi stared at the –red- thing and walked closer, sniffing it. It smelled like a mix between cake and pasta. The pasta smell probably created from the tomato bits he saw here and there. Wait, tomatoes? "Sasuke you…." He turned to look at his brother with wide eyes.

Sasuke translated the look as one of delighted surprise and clasped his arms behind him, blushing sheepishly, "I'm glad you like it, aniki! I made it just for you!"

Itachi took a few more moments to stare between his brother, who he noted was in great need of a bath, and the tomato cake. Then unexpectedly his shoulders started shaking as laughter erupted from his chest.

Sasuke did not understand what his brother found so funny and tugged at his arm, "Aniki, why are you laughing?"

His older brother laughed a couple of minutes more before he could control himself enough to just smile at his otoutou. This was just too crazy to be true and yet here the entire mess was sitting right in front of him. The antics Sasuke could do was endless it seemed! He gently carried Sasuke in his arms and nuzzled his nose against Sasuke's, "Thank you Sasuke, this is certainly one of the best gifts I've ever received."

The younger boy gave a joyful cry and encircled his brother's neck tightly with his arms. "I'm glad, aniki! Happy birthday!" He smiled broadly, ecstatic at the compliment.

"Now let's clean you up, hm?" Itachi raised his eye in amusement, wiping flour and sugar from Sasuke's cheek with his hand.

"But aniki needs a bath too! See?" Sasuke laughed, hugging Itachi tighter.

"So it seems." Itachi laughed with Sasuke as he carried him into the house and up the stairs to the bathroom. It was true that they would have to clean everything up later when their parents returned home, but just the thought of their reactions was reward enough. Besides…

Now Mikoto would think twice before leaving Sasuke home alone ever again.

* * *

A/N- I couldn't resist writing up a cute story with the Uchiha brothers. Hmm, maybe I'll start a little series or something with them. Ah well. Oh and I'm well aware that Itachi's birthday isn't until June 9th, but consider this a very early contribution! Anyway thank you for reading!


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